Town hall visitors are complaining they are unable to follow proceedings
because, when councillors lose their tempers, they trade insults in Bengali.

The trend away from speaking English has increased this year at Tower Hamlets Council meetings in East London, it has been claimed.

Now one of the councillors has made an official complaint about the use of Bengali - widely spoken among councillors who hail from Bangladesh - in the council chamber.

Councillor Abdal Ullah claims he was insulted, but some of the English-speaking councillors and public visitors failed to realise what had happened.

The Labour councillor claims he was called a "shurer batcha" - which means "Son of a pig" -- by a rival councillor during a heated exchange last month.

The slur is extremely offensive to Muslims. Councillor Ullah said in letter to the council's Standards Committee: "Whilst we may have our differences, councillors should afford one another courtesy in our exchanges rather than resorting to unnecessary and abusive insults."

He added that he was concerned that only English should be used in council meetings.

He wrote: "In my view the use of Bengali or other languages - other than in translation during public questions or petitions and so on - disrupts the transparency and openness of meeting by preventing some present from understanding the exchanges taking place."

Other complaints about the use of Bengali during meetings are also understood to have been received at the town hall.

The leader of the Conservative group, Peter Golds, said some of the Bengali-speaking councillors have to translate for him when speakers revert to their native language so that he can follow proceedings.

He said: "Bengali is being used in a very foul manner. At a full council meeting the language should be one that all members of the public should understand.

"It is a very serious problem here that a number of councillors insist on speaking in Bengali. It is not just when they get emotional. It happens a lot."

A Tower Hamlets Council spokesman said: "A councillor has made a formal complaint about a remark which was made in Bengali."

A spokesman for the Local Government Association said he understood the right of councillors to speak in a language other than English depended upon each local council's constitution.